February 29, 2024 Show with Marcus Serven on “John Calvin in the Role of Pastor” (Part 2)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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And now, here's your host, Chris Arnson. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth. We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

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Chris Arnson, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 28th day of February 2024.

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I'm thrilled to have a returning guest who is going to be addressing part two of a topic that we launched into recently.

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I believe it was last month and or middle of the month somewhere.

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And we had so much information that we had to share the first time that we had to extend this to a two -part interview.

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I am speaking of my guest, Marcus Servin, Pastor of Christian Discipleship at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas, which is a congregation within the

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Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA. And today, we're going to be addressing part two of John Calvin and the

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Role of Pastor. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. Marcus Servin.

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Thanks a lot, Chris. Great to be here. Well, why don't you tell our listeners, for the sake of those especially who missed our first interview, tell our listeners about Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Austin, Texas, and then also tell our listeners about the

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Genevan Foundation. Yeah, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Austin.

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I came here about seven years ago to Austin after a long career in pastoral ministry.

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And my plan was to retire and to do what Calvin wanted to do, which was to write and disciple and do those kind of things.

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And as I volunteered in service and teaching at Redeemer, then in pretty short order, the come out of retirement and to begin serving the church again, but this time just part time.

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And that's been really wonderful. It's a rich church in terms of liturgy, love of music, preaching of the word, a church of about 500 members.

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So it is a downtown church. And we have all the complications of ministering to people in very liberal, progressive

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Austin, Texas. But the church, I believe, is a good light shining on the hill in proclaiming the gospel, holding to the inerrancy of the scriptures, and also preaching and exalting the

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Reformed faith. So I'm very glad to be of service there. Well, praise

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God. And if anybody is either traveling through Austin, Texas, or if you live in Austin, Texas, or you have family, friends, and loved ones in Austin, Texas, you can go to the website to find out more about Redeemer Presbyterian Church there in Austin at redeemerpres .org.

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Now tell us about the Genevan Foundation. Sure. Probably 20 years ago, my family, we have a large family, nine adult children now, and lots of grandkids coming our way, which is a great blessing.

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But we started singing the psalms together. And so we started a little website where we offered the psalms that we were singing and put on CDs and so forth.

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Once the kids have grown, and now they're all grown up, I took over that website and turned it into a place for putting my writings on church history, especially writings about the

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Reformation. And the name, the Genevan Foundation, just simply symbolizes the fact that so much of what we believe and practice in the

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Protestant church today comes from the example of the church in Geneva, which was headed up by John Calvin.

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And so there I've written lots of articles on different reformers, different figures in American church history, and then a number of theological articles.

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Just recently, we launched a new endeavor at Redeemer Presbyterian called the Redeemer Theological Academy.

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The elders very kindly appointed me the director of that. And so we are offering classes now, in -person classes, not online or anything like that, but in -person classes in theology, in church history, apologetics, biblical studies, and practical ministry.

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Those are the five areas. So here we are in retirement, but still staying very, very busy.

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Praise God. And if anybody wants to find out more about the Genevan Foundation, go to thegenevanfoundation .com.

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TheGenevanFoundation .com. I also encourage everybody listening, after this live program is over, if you missed part one of our discussion on John Calvin and the role of pastor, and we never actually got into the specific aspect of Calvin as a pastor, we were talking about Marcus' own personal salvation testimony and some background information about Calvin that was very important.

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But we never got into the depth of his role of pastor, which is our theme, our main theme,

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I should say. But you could go into the Iron Trip and Zion Radio archive, irontripandzionradio .com,

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type in the name Servan, S -E -R -V as in Victor, E -N,

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Servan, and that interview on January 29th of 2024 will come up.

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And that is part one of this discussion. So, bring us back to where you want to pick up the conversation.

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Marcus, if you want to give an overview of anything that we discussed in our first part of this discussion, you can do that, or just begin the conversation wherever you want.

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Well, there's so much to say about John Calvin. I've been studying his life and ministry for over 40 years and collecting all of his books, as well as books about him.

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I had a chance to write a dissertation on Calvin and his role as pastor, and that was a wonderful privilege to do so.

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Something I remind the listeners about that Calvin's personal motto was the following,

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Cor meum tibi offero domini prompt et sincere.

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Yeah, that's the tattoo I have on my chest. I'm only kidding. Just kidding.

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Well translated, it is, my heart I offer to you, Lord, promptly and sincerely.

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And so, we think about the man, John Calvin, who really only lived about 55 years.

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He died a few months prior to his 55th birthday, but the immense, indefatigable amount of work that he accomplished, not only in terms of preaching and teaching, but also in the writing of significant books like the

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Institutes of the Christian Religion, and all the practices that he established in his role as a pastor.

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For example, in Geneva, in the worship there, you'll find a pattern for worship that has filtered down all the way to this current age, and many

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Reformed and Presbyterian churches of various stripes really have the roots of their worship service in the

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Genevan order of worship. Beyond that, we see Calvin popularizing what we would call expository preaching.

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That kind of preaching was pretty well unknown prior to the times of Calvin, but we see a hunger in the people of God during the time of the

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Reformation for expositional teaching from the scriptures, line by line, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and that's exactly what

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Calvin popularizes and gives to people, so that people were like hungry folks who are ravenous for the

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Word of God, and that's one of the things that he did. Another important aspect of Calvin's pastoral ministry is that he brought about the practice of the visitation of elders.

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The elders in the church in Geneva had the responsibility for overseeing the different families in their parish.

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They had a parish system that would consist of any number of families, maybe 50 to 100 families, and those elders who were over that parish and the deacons were responsible to both be encouragers and also those who would hold people to the

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Christian faith and attendance at church and so forth, the catechism of their children and all of that.

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So these are all aspects of pastoral ministry that Calvin was very much a part of, and he didn't have the easiest time of bringing them about.

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There were lots of people who opposed Calvin at different points, especially a group in Geneva which became known as the

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Infants de Geneva, who were also known as the Libertines.

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That would be their more common nomenclature of how they were known. But there were a group of people in Geneva made up of some of the principal families.

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They all assented to the affirmation of the doctrinal standards of the church in Geneva that Guillaume Farel, Calvin, and Pierre Viret, and other different reformers had brought to But they weren't so keen on the transformation of morals and their way of life.

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Geneva was a very cosmopolitan type of city. Every vice that you could possibly think of, you could easily find there.

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It was at the very end of Lake Le Mans or what later became known as Lake Geneva.

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It was a gateway down into France, so there was a lot of trade, a lot of commerce that took place there, and it was quite a challenge for the reformers, in particular

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Calvin, to bring about a reformation time in the period of roughly 1541 all the way up to 1545 or 55, so roughly 14 years of challenging work, turmoil, at times when

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Calvin thought he was going to lose his position altogether and be thrown out of the city for a second time.

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And at different points where they saw some gain, but it was a struggle during those 14 years in particular.

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So I'm going to pick up right at that point, Chris, if you don't mind. That'd be great. Well, first of all, when

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Calvin came back to Geneva in 1541 in November, he had been exiled from Geneva along with Pharrell and various other pastors because they refused to celebrate the

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Lord's Supper in the Easter of 1538. The city council was incensed by that, and they declared all the preachers, including

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Calvin, as persona non grata, and they had to leave. They gave him a very short window of time to get out of town.

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But as those two and a half years went by, there were several situations that arose that made the

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Geneva City Council realize what a fool they were or what fools they were to get rid of Calvin.

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There was a letter, for example, from Cardinal Sattoletto, a Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal in Italy, who wrote to try to win the

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Genevan church back to Roman Catholicism. Yeah, that correspondence is a very important event in history, actually, isn't it, with Calvin and Cardinal Sattoletto?

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They couldn't find anyone in Geneva to answer Sattoletto. And so eventually someone had the idea of sending his letter to Calvin, who at that time was a minister in Strasbourg alongside of Martin Busser.

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And Calvin, in three days time, wrote this brilliant response, which he sent back to Geneva, and they then forwarded that on to Sattoletto.

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And the response of Calvin was so powerful in refuting the arguments that Sattoletto put forward that at that point the people in Geneva realized they had to get

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John Calvin back. And so they began working to do that very thing. By the way,

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I'm sorry I keep interrupting you, but can you remind our listeners why they refused to observe the

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Lord's Table that Easter? The reason why is that the town of Geneva had descended over many, many decades into a very despicable, violent and immoral place.

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And the efforts of the reformers, Calvin and Farrell and a few others, were not producing all the fruit that they had hoped.

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And so they felt that it would be a offense to God to celebrate the

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Lord's Supper in April of 1538. And so they refused to do so to allow the people to receive the supper when there was a lack of repentance and a kind of a double minded approach.

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They would affirm doctrine, but they wouldn't change their lives. And that's what got them in trouble with the

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Geneva City Council. So they even banned the Lord's Table to those who were giving evidence of genuine saving faith and repentance and godliness.

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It was a universal thing. Yes. Even Calvin himself didn't partake, right? That's correct.

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They felt that it would have been an offense to God to have the people receive the supper when there was such a shabby standard of walking with Christ in the city of Geneva.

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I just wanted to quickly say, and then I'm not going to interrupt you so much anymore. This really is such glaring evidence against some of Calvinism's enemies.

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You know, you have enemies who are firing their weapons at Calvinism from all sides.

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Some who actually believe, or should I say, declare slanderously that Calvinism teaches a works righteousness, which is utterly absurd.

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But there are those on the other side of the spectrum, including a world famous Calvary Chapel -affiliated pastor and preacher,

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Raul Reis, who, I don't know if he's changed his opinion since then, but I can remember vividly him saying on his program, there are people out there who believe you can live like the devil your whole life and you'll still go to heaven when you die.

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That's not in the Bible, man. John Calvin made that up, man. And obviously,

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Raul Reis had never read a single sentence by John Calvin because he never would have come to the conclusion he did otherwise.

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And what you just said about the banning of the

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Lord's Supper that Easter because of the lack of repentance on the majority of the populace of Geneva is glaring evidence that Calvin took a holy life very seriously.

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That's right. Let me just read a list of different problems that were evident in Geneva that the reformers, notably

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Calvin, were trying to deal with. One was excessive drunkenness. Secondly, the abundance of taverns all over town.

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Not that Calvin was against having wine or some other brewed beverage. He was never against that.

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But there were people who abused that whole aspect of life, and that was a serious problem.

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There was the Roman Catholic view of holidays, which turned them into great feasting times, nothing against feasts, but the idea that they were also idolatrous in the way that they were practiced.

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An abundance of gambling. Morality plays that were popular at that time at the later ends of the medieval age.

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There were sensual dances that took place, prostitution, divorce, and remarriage that was unscriptural.

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And there was an abundance of superstition. I mean, these were just some of the issues that Calvin and the reformers were trying to deal with in Geneva.

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And one of the ways that they tried to deal with this right off is that Calvin came up with a plan.

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His plan was called the Ecclesiastical Ordinances. And basically, it just meant the way in which the church was going to work.

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How were they going to work their plan? And one of the things that he tried to do in particular was to bring about regular preaching of the word and a regular observance of the

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Lord's Supper that in time became the regular practice in Geneva. It took a while to get there, but he wanted to get the city because the whole city was expected to be a part of the church on a regular basis, not just individual

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Christians or individual families here or there, but the entire city. That was the understanding at that time.

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And so in coming up with this plan, he set certain things in motion. One of those was the establishment of a consistory.

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And that would be the idea of having not only the ministers of the church, some of the ruling elders, some of the fathers of the city council, that is, and also some of the magistrates of the city council all meeting together on Thursdays to deal with areas that were problems in the life of different individuals.

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Let's say, for example, that there was a husband who was abusing his wife and his children.

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And that would come to the attention of the elders. They would seek to reason with a man following the practice of Matthew 18.

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If there was no repentance, then they would go in two or three members. And if no repentance, they would tell it to the church, which involved going to the consistory that met every

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Thursday and calling such a person who was abusing his family to report to them.

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And they would exhort him by scripture. And there also would be a close relationship between the church and the civil authorities.

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That's a little different today where we have a much clearer separation of powers.

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But at that time in the 1500s, there was a much closer relationship between church and state or the civil authorities.

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And so the establishment of a consistory was an important aspect for discipline.

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There also was the recognition that there needed to be regular preaching. And so orderly times to preaching were established in the church, not only on the

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Lord's Day, twice on the Lord's Day, usually a morning and an afternoon service, but also midweek services.

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And so Calvin and the reformers in Geneva established a time of coming to worship on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

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As time went along, that expanded out. Those weren't obligatory services, but they were additional services where people could come and sit under the preaching of the word and they could learn what it meant to be free in Christ and to be one who is pardoned and freed from the guilt of sin.

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What it meant to be a Christian, what it meant to lead a Christian life. I mean, these were all important aspects in the life in Geneva.

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That's why you see on the monument to the Reformation, the words post -Tenebrous

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Lux. Out of darkness, light. After darkness, light.

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Yeah, that the gospel was making such an impact in the lives of the people in Geneva that they were beginning to see to what degree they had been living in darkness under the

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Roman Catholic system and how they needed to come out from it. Well, let me tell you a little bit more about some of the struggles that Calvin had.

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There were a number of individuals who gave him much grief through the life of his life and his ministry in particular.

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There were some who sought to attack him in a straightforward manner and just challenging him in public debate.

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That didn't always go over so well because one, Calvin had such an incredible memory that he was able to bring up scripture citations and citations from the early church fathers as well as a very broad range of reading that he had accomplished and a remarkable memory for citing lengthy passages.

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And so he was able to defeat many of his opponents who came against him.

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And then there were more sneaky opponents. In particular, the libertines who always seemed to try to get under the skin of Calvin by calling him insulting names, by floating various lies and various innuendos around.

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There was one time in 1547, if I have the date right, when there was a plague in Geneva.

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And there were lots of people who were dying. Some of Calvin's friends encouraged him to leave

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Geneva, which he never would do. He refused to do so. But there were some people who tried to essentially kill him at that point.

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They would take some of the body fluids or bodily fluids from some of those who had died in the plague and they would go and wipe those over the door of his house.

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Wow. And over the doorknobs to try to kill him, he and his family.

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Wow. It was a very shocking display of wickedness. But you can see the way that people would descend to such levels of depravity to try to undo him or to take him off of the scene.

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Now the libertines, as we, I believe, brought up the last time, just so our listeners, especially that are hearing this for the first time, they very much fit the description that the aforementioned

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Raoul Ries slanderously gave to Calvinism. They did believe that you could live like the devil your whole life and go to heaven.

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Isn't that right? Well, in many ways, because they had grown up in the Roman Catholic system where there was no real sense of assurance, you would seek to live a holy life by participating in the life of the church, in particular, receiving the sacraments of which there were seven.

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So they would try to receive as many of them as possible. And each of those sacraments that they could receive would give an element of grace, almost like a substance that you would try to collect in an empty jar.

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And the hope was that by participating in the life of the church, by deeds of penance, that they would accumulate enough grace so that when they died, they would only have to have a short time in purgatory, or perhaps if they had enough people praying for them, and enough appeals made to the saints and to the

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Virgin Mary, they might be able to get enough grace to go straight into the presence of God, into heaven, and to experience the beatific vision.

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That was the hope and the goal. But the problem with Roman Catholic theology is that it's all based upon non -scriptural ideas, the traditions of men, and as a result, as the true gospel kept being preached, there were a group of people who took offense at that.

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It's exactly what Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 2, that spiritual truth is spiritually discerned.

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And these people couldn't discern what Calvin and the other Reformers were saying, and so they were opposed to it.

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And so they sought to take the Reformer down. In fact, pick up where you left off when we return from our first commercial break.

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If you'd like to join us with a question of your own, send it to chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

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So go to royaldiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We are now back with Marcus Servis, and we are discussing the pastoral role of John Calvin, and we were in the midst of a clarification and identification of the

40:00

Libertines and what they stood for, if you want to pick up where you left off, brother. Yeah, happy to.

40:08

The Libertines, as I mentioned, were the spiritual opponents of Calvin, and they sought to do him a lot of damage.

40:18

But it's good to remember something that Calvin wrote about conflict. He said,

40:24

Even a dog will fight for his master when threatened. How much more should I fight for the word of God?

40:31

Amen. And I think that's a wonderful statement or testimony to the determination that Calvin had to keep moving forward, to keep his plan that he had established in mind in the ecclesiastical ordinances, and to trust

40:54

God for the results. I wanted to read just for a moment one quote from Charles Bridges, who wrote a masterful book on Christian ministry, and in that book, he gives this testimony to the labors of Calvin.

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And so just listen to this summary of what Calvin did throughout his ministry, and his life.

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This is Charles Bridges saying, What shall we say of Calvin's indefatigable industry, even beyond the power of nature, which being paralleled with our loitering,

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I fear will exceed all credit, and may be a true object of admiration how his lean, worn, spent, and weary body could possibly hold out.

41:46

He read every week in the year three divinity lectures, and every other week over and above.

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He preached at times over every day, so that Erasmus said of Chrysostom, I do not know whether more to admire the indefatigableness of the man or his hearers.

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Yea, some have reckoned up that Calvin's lectures were yearly 186, his sermons 286.

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And besides Thursday, he sat in the presbytery and the consistory. Calvin's own account in one of his letters to Pharrell thus speaks,

42:25

When the messenger called for my book, the commentary on Romans, which was his first commentary, I had 20 sheets to revise.

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I had to preach, to read to the congregation, to write 42 letters, and attend to some controversies, and return answers to more than 10 persons who had interrupted me in the midst of my labors for advice.

42:47

Well, that's a picture of the busyness of John Calvin. What do you think of that,

42:53

Chris? I'm blown away, and it's also, whenever I hear about a great saint of God, especially from history past, but even from today, whose life and knowledge and accomplishments and legacy is far greater than I will ever leave to anyone

43:15

I know. And these individuals, some of these individuals, went home to be with the

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Lord at a far younger age than I am currently at right now. Calvin was seven years younger than me.

43:29

Not yet 55. And I also think of Robert Murray McShane, who passed and went home to be with the

43:37

Lord at 29. And how he accomplished for the Lord infinitely more than I will ever accomplish.

43:45

And it's just, it can be embarrassing. But these kinds of things propel us and challenge us to be better servants of Christ.

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Absolutely. I think of it as just the issue of humility. And I'm humbled by their example.

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And I've lived longer than a lot of these guys. And I wish there were times and seasons when

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I would have been much more productive, that's for sure. Well, a little bit more about Calvin's pastoral ministry.

44:21

He believed very strongly that the church was typified by three marks.

44:27

He called these the Notae Ecclesia. And the first was that there would be a fervent preaching of the word of God.

44:36

That was his commitment to make sure that the word of God was proclaimed from week to week, and even day to day in his lectures.

44:47

Secondly, he believed this, a mark of the church was the proper observance of the sacraments, of which all

44:56

Protestants would believe that there are two that the Lord has enumerated for us in the church, and that is baptism and the

45:06

Lord's Supper. And thirdly, Calvin implied a third mark, which was later popularized by John Knox, who was one of the students of John Calvin in the

45:16

Geneva Academy and his times of lecturing. And that was the idea of discipline of the church.

45:23

And so you have the preaching of the word, the proper administration of the sacraments, the discipline of the believer.

45:31

So when we think about the church today and what church should we be a part of or even consider joining?

45:39

Well, it seems to be those three marks in particular have to be at the forefront of our minds as to where we're going to settle, where we're going to know we'll be spiritually nurtured.

45:52

And that was Calvin's desire as well, to make sure that in Geneva, all of that happened.

46:00

Now, one of the ways that Calvin sought to make it come about was through the offices of the church, or you could even say certain officers within the church.

46:13

And he recognized that there were four basic offices. There were pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons, those four.

46:24

Now, in a lot of Reformed and Presbyterian churches, we'll have pastors, we'll have deacons, we'll have elders.

46:32

And sometimes the elders also include those who are in the pastoral role, all of them being elders, but simply having a different calling, per se, in terms of time and commitments to the church.

46:49

But Calvin saw these four offices as a scriptural structure that gave direction and guidance to the church.

46:59

And kind of unique was this issue of the teacher. The teacher did not have the responsibility of leading worship or administering the sacraments, but they were to be involved in the proclamation of the gospel and the exposition of Holy Scripture on a regular basis so that every church had someone who was particularly gifted in that area to not only write, but also to teach for the advancement of maturity in the church.

47:34

And so that was one of the things that Calvin was very much involved in. He also felt that the officers of the church were the ones to administer the keys of the kingdom.

47:48

And so you could see that God has created certain structures like a family that has the rod, the civil authorities who would manifest a sword, but the church who would manifest ecclesiastical discipline through the power of the keys to the kingdom.

48:12

And that is that when there were people who claimed to be Christians and went astray, that there would be some loving exhortation that would be given.

48:24

People would be brought before the Genevan consistory to give an explanation of why they were not coming to church, why there was family disharmony, why they were falling back into public sin, why they were critical of the doctrines of the church, all these different things.

48:43

Then if they weren't going to heed that exhortation, then there were more serious consequences that could come in time.

48:53

But that was one of the functions of the officers of the church to exercise the keys of the kingdom.

49:03

Now in Geneva, they recognize that the authority within the church was not to be invested in any one man, but into a plurality of godly elders.

49:18

And so in this way, they establish a pattern that's going to be a rich example for not only those in the

49:26

Baptist world, but also those in the Presbyterian world and those in the Dutch Reformed and various other

49:33

Reformed churches, a pattern of leadership that there is to be a session of elders or a consistory made up of elders and deacons or some sort of leadership board that does not invest spiritual authority in just one individual.

49:54

And we can give thanks to Calvin for setting that kind of system up and popularizing it in Geneva.

50:01

Surely it was known in scripture, but you have to remember there had been over a thousand years of Roman Catholic hegemony and as it were covering over those spiritual patterns.

50:17

And so Calvin reinstitutes that. In regard to civil government,

50:25

Calvin recognized that there were these two different spheres of authority in any given city, church and state.

50:36

And admittedly, at that time, church and state were much closely united in their working together than perhaps in our time today.

50:47

Maybe that'll change over the next several decades or century here in our own country, which would be,

50:54

I think, a good step forward. But there was the idea that church and state work together.

51:01

Some people, because of this, felt that Calvin was the dictator of Geneva.

51:07

I suppose you've heard that criticism, have you, Chris? Oh, yeah. The crazy ideas.

51:13

In fact, some people, not even exaggerating, some people I know have actually confused

51:19

Vlad the Impaler in Transylvania with John Calvin and given the same anecdotes about Vlad the

51:29

Impaler having people on his front lawn impaled on stakes. And so I had to correct them about that.

51:38

Well, that's very, very far from the truth. I couldn't compare you. Well, here's a few examples just to show that Calvin could not have been the dictator of Geneva.

51:52

We've already talked about how Calvin, William Farrell and Ami Corot, the pastors of Geneva, were exiled from the entire city in the year 1538.

52:07

They were declared persona non grata. They had to leave the city. We've already established that fact.

52:14

Secondly, when Calvin did return, one of the main points of contention from 1541 on was who had the authority of practicing excommunication for an unrepentant sinner.

52:33

Was that the ministers of the gospel and the consistory? Or was that the

52:40

Geneva City Council? Because of all of the abuses in the

52:45

Roman Catholic system, the council in many ways overreacted, taking that authority upon themselves.

52:53

By the way, could you pick up where you left off when we return from our midway break, please? I'm sorry to interrupt you again.

53:00

No problem. I'll do that. And just don't forget where you left off there. I've got it all marked.

53:06

Please be patient with us, folks. The middle break is always a little longer because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

53:12

FM in Lake City, Florida, requires us to have a longer break in the middle of the show because the

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FCC requires of them to localize Iron Sherpins Iron Radio geographically to Lake City, Florida, where the radio station is located.

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They do so with their own public service announcements and other local things while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

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Please use this time wisely. Respond to as many of our advertisers as you possibly can, keeping in mind that our advertisers and the finances they provide for us are what is keeping us on the air.

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So please respond to our advertisers and also send in your questions to Marcus Servin, to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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We'll be right back. Puritan Reformed is a Bible -believing, kingdom -building, devil -fighting church.

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We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine and practice preserved in Scripture alone.

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Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image -bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

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Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

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It is much more than an exposition of the Larger Catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

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Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia that Dr.

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Marcus Servin as we continue our discussion in part two of a discussion we began on January 29th today is part two of our discussion on John Calvin's role of pastor before we return to that I have some important announcements to make if you really love this show folks you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves go to ironsharpendesignradio .com

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01:11:23

chrisarnsen at gmail .com and if you continue where you left off Marcus before we go to any listener questions yeah happy to, we were discussing the idea of whether Calvin was a dictator of the city of Geneva and I was giving three different answers to that question, one was to say that in 1538 he was exiled from the city for two and a half years so hardly be considered a dictator of Geneva when that happened secondly there is an ongoing struggle over who had the right to excommunicate, the city council or the church authorities eventually

01:12:12

Calvin is going to win that argument but that was a struggle throughout his entire ministry and then thirdly the it's important to note that Calvin never served as an officer on any of the councils in the city of Geneva, there are many times that he addressed them but he never held any kind of civil office, he was never a member of any particular council and it was discovered to the shame of the

01:12:42

Genevans that they had never actually even made him a citizen of the city of Geneva until 1559 when they just happened to notice that oh my gosh our pastor is not even a citizen of the whole city he's a native of France that's right so they quickly took care of that problem but it was just a good example of how this claim that somehow he was a dictator of the city was actually not at all true and I want to say just a little go ahead

01:13:23

I want to say a little word about his preaching one of the things that Calvin was noted for obviously was preaching the word of God and one of the important aspects that he brings to the table when it comes to preaching is what he referred to as Lectio Continuo which is the preaching of one passage after another and that type of preaching although Calvin obviously did not invent it, there were other reformers who were doing similar things but Calvin certainly gets credit for popularizing expositional preaching verse after verse chapter after chapter, book after book and if you do any study of Calvin and his pastoral ministry you'll see that thanks to the recording efforts of the deacons in the city, we have a number of his sermons in fact thousands of his sermons in let's see 1549 the deacons realized that nobody was actually doing a good job of recording his sermons so they actually hired a man

01:14:46

Denise Rognier who developed a system for taking down Calvin's sermons because he delivered them without notes and so there was nothing to go back to but he would take down word for word in the shorthand method and then he would submit the manuscripts to Calvin for any corrections and those manuscripts later become what's known as the commentaries that have made

01:15:16

Calvin so famous over the years his comments not only on different portions of Scripture but different points of theology as well so Calvin he would preach in the mornings and then he would preach in the afternoons typically at Saint Pierre which was the largest church facility in Geneva but also he would go out to some of the smaller chapels

01:15:45

La Madeleine was one of the ones he went to frequently which was only about a half mile away from Saint Pierre just down the hill and he would preach there on Sunday evenings often times he also was committed besides preaching verse by verse that he was committed to also having his sermons published if at all possible and so we can be thankful today that we can get a lot of Calvin's sermons

01:16:19

Denise Raganere in his service recorded over 2 ,000 sermons of Calvin and we have most of them all in print and so Old Pass publications

01:16:33

Banner of Truth, Eerdmans P &R all of those different companies have been pretty dedicated at keeping the sermons of Calvin in print probably

01:16:45

Banner of Truth is the most notable for a lot of recent publications and I would highly recommend people to read his sermons.

01:16:54

By the way I must throw in there that you could get books by all of those publishers and specifically about and by John Calvin at cvbbs .com

01:17:06

who sponsored this program, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com I'm sorry, continue

01:17:13

No, excellent Calvin's also known for teaching the word and he saw that as different from his sermons that he would give on Sunday or during midweek preaching services but typically every day he would go into a small building which was to the south of the

01:17:41

St. Pierre and it was called the Auditoire or the auditorium and there he would give lectures in theology and again those lectures were taken down and they found their way into many of the commentaries that we have on scripture.

01:17:59

He would give lectures on different books of the Bible, on different theological subjects and so forth.

01:18:07

If you go to the Baker Books edition of the commentaries, you will see in that multi volume set, 30 ,000 pages of notes that were written down on Calvin's lectures in the

01:18:25

Auditoire I mean it's amazing to think about that, that over the space of his ministry he could lecture and teach that much.

01:18:36

Beyond that he wrote a number of theological treaties, a very important one on providence also on the concerning the eternal predestination of God a very popular treaties called the necessity of reforming the church and then one that I've enjoyed a great deal called

01:19:01

A Short Treatise on the Lord's Supper. I would highly recommend any of those different theological writings that Calvin put together and then of course above all is the

01:19:13

Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin first started that back in 1536 he just simply referred to it as his small book, his little book that could be hidden in a coat pocket that was a summary of Christian doctrine but it grew through five editions over the years into a massive four books which typically are contained today in one or two volumes.

01:19:45

I recommend in particular the two volume set that you can find published in the

01:19:55

Presbyterian World with I'm blanking now on the translator but it will come to me shortly but that's a really good set of Calvin's Institutes of the

01:20:09

Christian Religion that I would highly recommend. Calvin was involved in dealing with controversy did you know

01:20:18

Chris that Calvin got into a sword fight? No I did not. I would love to have seen that.

01:20:26

I know he must have won because he didn't die of a sword injury. Well the problem was that he got into a sword fight but he didn't have a sword.

01:20:37

How do you like that? Yeah that's dangerous activity that's for sure.

01:20:47

Yes it is. Well what happened is this, it was in 1547 there was a conflict going on in the city of Geneva and there were some who felt that Ami Perrin who was the head of the city militia had entered into a secret agreement with some of the officials in France to somehow get a toehold in Geneva.

01:21:15

Geneva considered itself a free city and there was a friend of Calvin as well who also was implicated in that and both men were put in prison until the date of the trial.

01:21:30

At the time of the trial Ami Perrin was released. He was by the way part of the

01:21:37

Libertine party, the opponents of Calvin. This other man,

01:21:42

Mike Gray was his name, was kept in prison and that caused a lot of turmoil in Geneva.

01:21:49

One day Calvin and the ministers had gone to the city council to argue about a certain point and on their way back they just happened in God's providence to pass by one of the large assembly halls where the council of the 200 was meeting.

01:22:06

These were minor officials elected from the various neighborhoods in Geneva and they were quarreling over this injustice that Ami Perrin was released and this other man

01:22:21

Mike Gray was still kept in prison and they were ready to draw swords and Calvin and the ministers heard the turmoil they ran inside the building cast open the doors and found that everybody was about ready to do battle and Calvin hurled himself right into the middle of the whole thing he stood there ready to give up his life for the sake of what was going on and he felt for sure that he would lose his life in fact some reported that he grabbed a hold of his shirt and he ripped it open and said that if there's any blood to be drawn today let it begin with me and at that point everybody dropped their swords and he began to preach to them and had a very powerful effect upon the people who were ready to do battle and fight and he brought back peace into the midst of a really really challenging time after that Calvin felt sure he was going to be exiled again from the city but again in God's providence he was not and he was able to continue his ministry have you ever heard that story

01:23:42

Chris? Never heard it and I've heard many stories about John Calvin and that is a first that I've heard that one

01:23:50

Well that story by the way is an official entry in the register of the company of the pastors of Geneva which is published by Eerdmans and translated by Philip Hughes and so we can give thanks to God that such a record like that exists and also there are a number of letters from Calvin where he explains what happened when he was writing to his dear friend

01:24:23

Pierre Viret and also to other friends who he wanted to share what actually happened that day.

01:24:32

By the way you could get books by Pierre Viret from Zurich Publishing, I don't know if you're familiar with Zurich Publishing I am and I've written some of the promos for some of those books on Pierre Viret and also by Jean -Pierre

01:24:59

Jean -Marc Berthoud that's who I'm thinking of who has written a number of sermons on the law of God which are very significant and worthwhile to read.

01:25:09

Yes I've given both Viret and the book that you've just mentioned books by Viret and the book you've just mentioned away at my pastors luncheons the

01:25:23

Iron Trip and Zion Radio free pastors luncheons thanks to our friends at Zurich Publishing who provided every pastor in attendance a free copy of each of those works and if you anybody wants more details go to zurichpublishing .org

01:25:44

zurichpublishing .org I figured I'd throw that out there even though they don't advertise with us I wanted to let our listeners know about a very valuable publishing organization

01:25:54

I want to ask you a quick question I used to have a small book and for the life of me

01:26:02

I don't know where it is now I've moved twice at least since I last knew where that book was a small book called

01:26:12

Calvin A Life and the author was either

01:26:18

Emanuel Schtickl Gruber or Schtickl Berger are you familiar with that?

01:26:25

Yeah I think it's the best biography in print on the life of John Calvin I better find that book

01:26:36

Emanuel yeah you can still find copies from AB books used copies that is but Emanuel Schtickl Berger writes in a very colorful way he's a

01:26:51

Swiss reformed Presbyterian who rejoiced in the doctrines of grace it's especially fun to see the picture on the back of the dust cover of Schtickl Berger sitting in the library in Geneva smoking a cigar while he's writing the manuscript for his biography on Calvin not that I'm a cigar smoker but I just thought it was hilarious the copy that I had did not have any longer a dust jacket but one of the things

01:27:27

I wanted to ask you about in particular is Schtickl Berger included in that book unless I am just totally misremembering this

01:27:36

I don't think I am but Schtickl Berger included in that biography something that I never saw anywhere else in writing and if I'm not mistaken he claimed that he pled with Servetus to repent and well

01:27:57

Servetus was in prison and Servetus did repent and he

01:28:04

Calvin attempted to call off the execution am I correct in remembering that well that's not exactly true well maybe you could revisit that book to see if I'm right in remembering that it's actually a different book it's a book by which is a very small little biography on John Calvin it's a very good biography

01:28:33

I think it's Dr. Joe Morecraft's favorite biography on John Calvin must be good then it is good

01:28:43

I have to admit but the reality is that there was a report an official report given in the register of the company of pastors about the death of Servetus and it says that Servetus was condemned and was to be taken to to be burnt alive there this was done without any sign of repentance for his errors being given by Servetus at the time of his death and so that that testimony which comes from the official records of the council of pastors undercuts the claim that Servetus repented at the last moment so I knew that Calvin attempted to persuade the

01:29:42

Genevan authorities not to burn him alive but is there any evidence that he even later added to that urging to call off the execution yeah what

01:29:55

Calvin he served as the as it were the prosecuting attorney in the trial of Servetus and again you can find a record of the entire trial with Servetus' statements that he uttered at the trial which were all taken down in the company of the register of pastors or the register of the company of pastors of Geneva and the trial is records are all in there it is a very sobering read to read through the answers that Servetus gave you begin to see the depth of the heresy and the deception that was so prominent in Servetus he was not a person to be esteemed or lifted up as a paragon of virtue he was not a person to be lifted up as a lamp of liberty he was a very self -focused narcissistic man who decided in his mania to take on the most accomplished theologian in all of Europe and that was

01:31:12

John Calvin and so he wrote against Calvin he stole some of Calvin's letters and put them into his inflammatory book called the

01:31:25

Restitutio de Christianisme or the Restitution of Christianity kind of in contrast to the

01:31:32

Institutes and eventually when he came to Geneva in 1553 a lot of people believed that he came at the encouragement of the libertines

01:31:44

Servetus had already been condemned to death down in Lyon he escaped from there before the sentence was carried out and like a moth drawn to a bright light he came to Geneva now

01:32:00

Calvin had actually warned him at different times never come to Geneva and when he was discovered there then he was immediately arrested and because the

01:32:15

Geneva authorities saw him as a real threat to not only the established order of the church but also to the entire city to overturn or make upside down all the things that they held dear and again it appears that the libertines were behind the appearance of Servetus eventually through the trial he was condemned to death and this was done at the advice of several of the other cities, major cities of Protestant Switzerland the city fathers sent the notes of the trial, the record of the trial to these other cities, they all agreed that he should be put to death and Calvin sought to ameliorate the form of death which the

01:33:12

Geneva city fathers wanted to put him to death by what they called a petite fure, a small fire and that of course would have been terrible and miserable to suffer such a thing,

01:33:24

Calvin interceded on behalf of Servetus that he would be simply be beheaded and it would be quickly over but the city fathers would not listen to Calvin and again another evidence that Calvin was not the dictator of the city and they went ahead with the execution in October of 1553 and that became a blot so to speak on Calvin's character and Calvin's ministry.

01:34:00

Now this was primarily because of his opposition to or denial of the

01:34:06

Trinity and also for his refusal to recognize infant baptism weren't those the two issues?

01:34:18

There was a third one there was a third one and that was the rejection of any sort of doctrine of predestination and foreknowledge, divine sovereignty of God.

01:34:30

And so you have those three issues that Servetus sought to undercut. He was probably most well known for his rejection of the

01:34:39

Trinity and his characterization of the

01:34:45

Trinity as a unholy superstitious alliance between despotic forces.

01:34:52

I mean he had some very colorful language and again you got to read the trial to realize what kind of person he really was.

01:35:02

Yeah I definitely will and by the way I've also heard and maybe you can correct me if this is error.

01:35:08

I've also heard that in contradiction to the portrayal of Servetus by many to gain sympathy for him of being some kind of an innocent victim.

01:35:22

I have heard and I may be wrong that he was calling upon for the death of Calvin.

01:35:30

Absolutely. His plan was to turn the trial against him into a litany of offenses against Calvin and his goal which he actually made very clear over the course of his trial and also as he spoke with William Farrell who came several times to preach the gospel to Servetus.

01:35:56

His goal was essentially to take Calvin's place as the pastor of the church and as the chief theological voice of the

01:36:06

Reformation. That's what he thought to do. He wanted to supplant Calvin and for Calvin then to then be imprisoned and put to death.

01:36:17

And so you're exactly right in terms of what you've heard about what the goal of Servetus was.

01:36:24

Let me take a quick question from Floyd in Rochester, New York. Floyd asks, is there any way of knowing whether or not

01:36:35

John Calvin would have agreed with the execution of Servetus if his only disagreement with Calvin was over infant baptism?

01:36:49

I think in answer to that question he would not have been executed. He would have been exiled which was the typical punishment that was used by the

01:37:03

Geneva City Council to remove people who were challenging the doctrines and practices of the church.

01:37:13

But the issue with Servetus was much more complicated because he had written so extensively and published books not only against the doctrine of the

01:37:25

Trinity and the sovereignty of God and infant baptism but he had also called out

01:37:34

Calvin by name. There was a time where Calvin corresponded with him and had sent him 30 different letters and Servetus actually took those letters, put them into his book and then essentially just took apart all of Calvin's arguments with his criticisms and his accusations against Calvin.

01:38:02

So it was a much more serious issue and it is a bit of a hypothetical question to consider but I think

01:38:10

Servetus would have been simply exiled and that was the case with several others who were not citizens of Geneva they were critics of Calvin or of the

01:38:24

Genevan practices of the Reformed Church and so they were declared to be persona non grata in Geneva.

01:38:32

The reason why Floyd's question is excellent because as a Reformed Baptist myself and I think this is very typical

01:38:40

I think of Reformed Baptist experience that our fellow Baptists who are anti -Calvinist will very often accuse us of being foolish because we would give such a high view of Calvin in the place of history because they will describe him as a murderer of Baptists.

01:39:06

Now he well first of all he never personally killed anybody but Servetus was not a

01:39:13

Baptist he was an anti - Trinitarian. Yeah and there were numbers of people who came to Geneva who held to extraneous erroneous heterodox beliefs that were out of accord with Scripture and they came with the hopes that perhaps they could establish a congregation or get a following in Geneva but they didn't really understand what

01:39:48

Geneva was all about. Geneva had moved away rapidly in 1534 and 35 away from Roman Catholicism and it wasn't that they just became a free city that didn't believe in anything they became a free city which had embraced the teachings of the

01:40:11

Reformation and so when we think of the great rallying cries of the Reformation Sola Gratia, Sola Fide Sola Scriptura and so on, that's what the

01:40:22

Genevan church fully adopted as their position and so anybody who is coming into town wanting to disrupt that orthodoxy was going to not be welcome in the city of Geneva.

01:40:39

There were other places that would take them and if they were wise they would have never come to Geneva in the first place because they should have known that there was a strong commitment to the authority of Holy Scripture in Geneva and nothing was going to shake them from that.

01:40:58

And by the way we have to go to our final break right now and if you have a question send it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time chrisarnsen at gmail .com

01:41:05

we'll be right back, don't go away. I don't think their praise is sufficiently but I'll give it a shot

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Iron Sharpens Iron radio on the air. Welcome back, and folks, please do not forget that this program is paid for in part by my very dear friend going back to the early 1990s,

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01:51:10

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01:51:17

Also, folks, if you're a man in ministry leadership, you are invited to the next free

01:51:23

Iron Sharpens Iron radio biannual pastors luncheon. Thursday, June the 6th, 11 a .m.

01:51:30

to 2 p .m. at Church of the Living Christ in Loisville, Pennsylvania. Everything is absolutely free of charge, including lunch, and everybody in attendance is going to receive a very heavy sack of free brand new books, personally selected by me and donated by generous

01:51:47

Christian publishers all over the United States and the United Kingdom. And our guest speaker for the very first time ever is

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Dr. Joel Beakey, the founder and president of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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If you'd like to register for this free event, if you're a man in ministry leadership, send me an email to chrisarnzen at gmail .com

01:52:08

and put pastorsluncheon in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question for my guest,

01:52:15

Marcus Servin, on the pastoral role of John Calvin. chrisarnzen at gmail .com

01:52:20

And we do have a listener, Zeke, in Tarrytown, Louisiana, and Zeke says, to your knowledge, did

01:52:29

John Calvin ever become even nearly persuaded that the ordinance of foot washing should be included to the two sacraments you already mentioned?

01:52:45

To my knowledge, John Calvin never embraced or even contemplated the idea of foot washing.

01:52:55

The obvious reason would be that it's only mentioned in one place.

01:53:02

So if you build a practice or contemplate having something be a sacrament, it has to show up in a multiplicity of places in Holy Scripture and not just as an example of what our

01:53:21

Lord has done. Now, none of that is to take away anything from foot washing, which demonstrates the humility and the tenderhearted way that our

01:53:33

Lord cared for his disciples and made that very evident, but I can't remember anything in Calvin's ministry that would ever be even close to him contemplating that practice.

01:53:49

Well, if you could, I want to make sure that you cover everything that you intended to cover today, so please pick up where you left off and we'll let the program run its course.

01:54:01

Alright, thanks Chris. I did want to say that the best edition of the

01:54:08

Institutes that, in my opinion, is in the Library of Christian Classics.

01:54:14

It's a two volume set and it contains the four books of the

01:54:20

Institutes. It's edited by John McNeil and translated by Ford Lewis Battles.

01:54:27

That would be the closest in English to what we're used to reading.

01:54:35

If you get some of the older editions of the Institutes, it's in more

01:54:42

Victorian type of English, which is harder for us to understand. But this one by Ford Lewis Battles is,

01:54:50

I think, the best one in print today, and you can get copies in used bookstores or online from AB Books or even

01:54:59

Amazon will have copies of this translation of the Institutes.

01:55:05

I want to say something just a little bit about Calvin's concern for shepherding the souls of those for whom he was entrusted.

01:55:18

He had this to write in his commentary on Acts 20. He said that Christ did not ordain pastors on the principle that they only teach the church in a general way on the public platform, but that they care for the individual sheep.

01:55:37

They bring back the wandering and scattered to the fold. They bind up the broken and the crippled.

01:55:43

They heal the sick and support the frail and the weak. That was his vision for shepherds, pastors, in caring for the sheep of the flock.

01:55:57

To that mind, Calvin wrote an extensive number of letters, many of which have been preserved for us.

01:56:07

If you read through the letters, you get a very different impression of the man than the typical caricature that he's somehow this lofty theologian who cares not for the individual trials and difficulties of people.

01:56:22

Instead, just the opposite. You see how much he cares for people, how he wrote to some people who were in high positions of authority or positions as kings and queens and princes and princesses to try to share the gospel with them, and then with many, many friends and associates.

01:56:46

You see a very tender side emerge out of his letters. He was committed to visiting the sick, not only himself, but also for the deacons and the elders of the congregation in Geneva to carry out that ministry.

01:57:04

It was under his watch that the Genevan church established several hospitals, one for people who suffered under the plague, but also just an ordinary hospital for people who broke their arm or they had some illness or another.

01:57:22

Those were all overseen and run by the deacons. There was the visitation of prisoners, and Calvin himself, as well as many of the other ministers, would take turns in going into the jails in Geneva to preach the gospel and to pray with and to visit the prisoners that were held there.

01:57:45

He was committed to visiting families as well as all the rural churches because Geneva was more than just the city.

01:57:57

It had in essence a province or an outlying area all around the city, and those had smaller churches.

01:58:06

In fact, at one point, some of those smaller churches complained that Calvin had not done his duty in visiting some of those countryside churches.

01:58:19

By the way, brother, I think that we have to add part three because we're out of time. So, I want to make sure that we give the listeners your contact information, your websites, first of all, for Reformation, I'm sorry,

01:58:35

Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. Go to RedeemerPres .org,

01:58:41

RedeemerPres .org, and don't forget about the Genevan Foundation, the

01:58:47

GenevanFoundation .com, that's theGenevanFoundation .com.

01:58:53

Thank you so much, Marcus, and I do want you to come back. Sounds like you have a lot more to say on this issue, and I want to thank everybody who listened, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives,